A Fool's Strength
by trekbones
Summary: Hotch's thoughts in Profiler, Profiled


Title: A Fool's Strength

Author: Trekbones

Pairings: None

Rating: Teen

Spoilers: Profiler, Profiled

Warnings: Spoilers for "Profiler, Profiled" and deals with other team members thoughts in what happened to Morgan

Author's Note: This is a separate but also, in a way, a continuation of my story "Certainty of Ends." You don't have to have read that one to understand this one.

Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own _Criminal Minds_ or its characters.

Never was and never will be. Those words streamed through his thoughts. What could never be. Lost potential. Lost opportunities. A child who had to grow up so fast because a predator captured a child in his net and then toyed and controlled and stripped away the child for his own pleasure. The child then had to learn to fool everyone into thinking that, yeah, I'm okay, there's nothing wrong. Changing to fit the trap, becoming the food that nourished the predator.

Building walls. Destroying that which made the child a child and a person and becoming the prey. Aaron Hotchner was furious at Carl Buford for the damage and destruction he wrought on Derek Morgan's soul. For the destruction he had wrought on every child he had come into contact with over the years.

Demons and monsters hiding in plain sight and welcomed and honored by the community. Yet these monsters and demons were good at hiding, at covering, as distraction. You can't stop a monster unless you know that a monster is there in the first place. Hysteria serves no purpose except to cause chaos and confusion. Monster hunting takes precision, planning, cunning. It takes the knowledge and experience of people like himself and his team, Aaron mused.

He stood looking at Derek. A man who became a man at the hands of a monster. A monster who Derek was grateful for making him the man he was. A monster who had now changed the way Aaron and Gideon and the others looked at Derek. A monster who had made Derek question his place, who he was now, who his friends were. Not that Aaron was aware of this but monsters and thought processes were devious things.

The police had taken Buford away and it was just Derek, Aaron, and Gideon left. Awkward silence reigned. Derek waited for the dressing down, the disappointment he knew that he brought out in them because of this.

Derek instinctively turned his head away from Hotchner and Gideon. He knew that they were ashamed of him. He was ashamed of himself. His mind wasn't in the present but back when this had all happened in the past. He wasn't a thirty-something year old FBI Special Agent but a scared, confused teenager whose hero was hurting him, telling him that he cared but doing things that heroes didn't do, not to kids.

His secret was out and now everyone would know and treat him differently. Treat him like the weird freak and monster that he was. See that he was damaged, destroyed, a liar, a pretender. See what the sick monster did to him. Would believe the sick monster when he said Derek didn't say no. He just hoped the sick bastard didn't say he liked it but he knew that was slim.

People were only going to see the sickness, the damage done to him. They would see him and treat him as a victim. The last twenty years would be wiped away and forgotten in favor of the fascination with those few moments in time. People had a sick fascination with victims of sexual abuse. They probably got off on it. That sickened him further. He hated the silence, the condemnation he believed he could hear in it. Speak or leave. He wanted something to happen.

Aaron was angry yet knew that he needed to say something to Derek. He needed to make clear that while he hadn't appreciated the silence about his past, he did understand and that he and the others wouldn't define Derek this way. But words failed him. Furious anger at Buford reigned.

Aaron took a deep breath, tried to push his anger away, and was about to open his mouth to speak when Gideon interrupted.

"Derek, you're not responsible for what this man has done. Not then and definitely not now. You were just a kid then. A kid, who, with the trust of a child, trusted an adult. The adult that abused that trust is no friend and you would not have been able to do anything. Don't beat yourself over this. Just because you knew did not make you responsible for his actions. He was responsible. Not you. You were not responsible. Focus on that."

Derek's head snapped to look at Gideon. He looked at him is disbelief. Did Gideon not understand? He should have said something all those years ago and none of this would happened. Not the boys being killed. Not Gordinsky. Nothing. But then he may never have had the drive to become an FBI agent.

Derek walked out of the office, not able to comprehend what Gideon had said let alone the events of the last few days. He needed time to sort things out. He needed to regain his equilibrium and be the federal agent he was and not the victim everyone saw him to be. He didn't want to be seen as the victim. He knew that was too late.

Hotchner watched Morgan walk out, letting him go, understanding the need for space and the time to think things over. Damage control for the team was a higher priority plus the need to protect Derek's privacy in regards to the whole manner. Though the anger and frustration coursing through his veins right now did nothing to alleviate the need to punch something.

Gideon's words had no real effect on him. All he saw was himself in much the same position, the need to justify being the victim, that it was his fault and not the fault of the abuser, that nothing could have been done to change the outcome, nothing could be done to change what he was thinking and believing to be true though reality dictated otherwise.

You could lead a horse to water but cannot make a victim believe that it wasn't their fault. Not when the wound was too fresh, the pain too real, the hurt too visible, the vulnerability too open.

Derek was at that point and there was nothing that could be done, at least not now. The only thing that could be done was to understand the Derek was not to be coddled but to be respected for what he had gone through and become as a result of it. He was not a victim. He was an overcomer. Just like Hotch, no, better than Hotch. Hotch still carried the scars, nursing them, picking the scabs as incentive to fight back but also to brood and suffer. Derek let the wounds heal but had poured salt into them during the healing process so as to remind himself that he alone was guilty and that there was no other truth to the matter.

Tomorrow Aaron Hotchner would be the agent the FBI required him to be. Tonight Aaron would be the little boy lost in a world that made no sense where fathers beat their sons and heroes did unspeakable things to those that worshiped them.


End file.
